Mental health advocate walks the talk by organizing wellness event

Michele Solomon knows a thing or two about trying to find tranquility.

After dealing with mental illness and creating her own successful organization, Connect for Mental Health, she’s spent the past six months in some frustration waiting for money promised by the provincial government to revive the proven program.

Sometimes when Solomon needs to find tranquility, she heads to the water.

“Water is calming and people love to be by the water,” she said.

“For myself, I feel wellness by the water. I love being by the water. The water is associated with tranquility and peace and fellowship.”

So it’s only natural that about the same time the money from the province finally arrives, Connect will be holding a fundraiser to support its other programs at the beach pavilion at Fanshawe Conservation Area.

Wellness by the Water will bring together people demonstrating ways to get and stay well, speakers, author and mental health advocate Erica Humphrey, and entertainer and motivational speaker Saidat.

“It is going to be a real focus on mental health,” Solomon said.

Solomon founded Connect for Mental Health, a non-profit peer support organization by and for people who have been affected by mental illness, in 2007.

The organization doesn’t have the profile of the large agencies in the city, but became the subject of a political story earlier this year.

As part of a provincewide research project, Connect received funding to train volunteers to help psychiatric patients re-integrate back into community life after leaving hospital.

That peer support was a key element of what’s called a transitional discharge model, put in practice and examined at nine Ontario hospitals for the two-year study.

The study found that the relatively low cost discharge model worked well at easing people into the community, reducing patient stays and saving hospitals millions of dollars a year.

By the research project’s end, Connect had matched 100 peers and patients and had another 20 patients waiting for help.

But the project’s end meant the end of funding.

The same day the story about the funding problem appeared in The Free Press, Feb. 17, Health Minister Eric Hoskins promised in the legislature that Connect would get help immediately.

Connect waited and waited, and it’s taken until summer to get word that money will start to flow in September and last until March.

The money will re-ignite the program while the Southwest LHIN — the agency overseeing local health care spending — works on a long-term, overall strategy for peer support in the region.

Solomon is hopeful that strategy will include Connect and provide it with stable funding for the peer program. Meanwhile, the agency must continue to fundraise for its other peer support programs, such as its recovery groups, run by about 60 volunteers.

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